1 - Quantified Self and the Culture of Personal Data

Summary

To begin evaluating the interaction of “quantified self,” the concept, and Quantified Self (QS), the collective, with digital entrepreneurialism, it’s necessary to understand the influence of its originators, Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf, on this construct’s form and function. Chapter 1 reviews how the two authors have coined the term and established the group as an expression of what Wolf has called the “culture of personal data” (Wolf, 2009). While the founders defer to the explanatory power of culture in situating the collective within the technological imaginary, this chapter examines how their own personal backgrounds as journalists and Wired magazine editors have shaped the semantic meaning of “quantified self” as a catchphrase that refers to the means and outputs of digital self-tracking and especially to QS as a community of technophiles. Although the role the forum has come to play within the commercial self-tracking sphere analyzed in this book does not fully align with its originators’ intentions, the framing they established has set the tone for many of the ways the collective has become socialized in the technological arena as well as how it has come to work within it.